A youth sports blog written by Bob Cook. He's contributed to NBCSports.com, or MSNBC.com, if you prefer. He’s delivered sports commentaries for All Things Considered. For three years he wrote the weekly “Kick Out the Sports!” column for Flak Magazine.
Most importantly for this blog, Bob is a father of four who is in the throes of being a sports parent, a youth coach and a youth sports economy stimulator in an inner-ring suburb of Chicago. He reserves the right to change names to protect the innocent and the extremely, extremely guilty.
You can follow me at facebook.com/notgoingpro and twitter.com/notgoingpro. I'm endlessly fascinating.

Alas, though many schools and youth leagues conduct background checks, they’re not foolproof. They might limit their searches to only certain crimes. Or, in the case of Cardosa, nothing will show up, because until Feb. 3 she had no criminal record to speak of. Some organizations might require coaches to undergo training to spot and/or reduce the risk of child sexual abuse. But no matter what an organization does, the onus is still on the child’s parents or caregivers (or parent or caregiver) to keep an eye out for anything unusual.

I think I can safely say the vast, vast majority of coaches, whatever their faults, keep their hands to themselves. But the risk of your child playing for a coach who would get arrested and/or convicted on child sexual abuse charges (which may or may not involve someone on the team) is very real. Just check Google News on any week. Among the recent cases:

– A cheerleading coach arrested in Chino, Calif., on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl under his charge.

I’m not an expert on child sexual abuse prevention. So instead of me dispensing advice, here and here are good places to get some background and tips on how to make sure you’re keeping a respectful, watchful eye on coaches, and how to know if there’s something going on your child might not be sharing with you. One consistent bit of advice is that if you’re already watching out for this sort of thing, the chance your child becomes a victim of it goes down significantly.

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